


birthday minutes

by giggly__gay



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Birthday, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Siblings, Traditions, no beta we die like ben, some language, the hargreeves as kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26763247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giggly__gay/pseuds/giggly__gay
Summary: Every year, on October 1st, the Hargreeves siblings have one day all to themselves. All seven of them. In order to maintain equitable birthday celebration, they split the day up - two hours each, in order, to do whatever they want, no questions asked. Well. Very few questions asked.
Relationships: The Hargreeves Family
Comments: 9
Kudos: 108





	birthday minutes

All eyes are trained on Ben’s wristwatch. “Okay, three… two… one… go!”

Allison rounds on Luther. “Okay, so what first?”

Luther’s grin takes up nearly all of his face. “Have you guys ever been to the museum?”

“Is that in the city?” Diego asks, his brow furrowing. Luther nods.

“By the library. I saw it on a map, and I found a pamphlet in the mail. They have an exhibit on airplanes all month.”

“That sounds boring,” Klaus groans, but Allison shoots him a look that shuts him up. He sighs. “I know, I know. But just wait until my turn, mine will be fun.”

–

Fifteen minutes and a bus ride later, seven pairs of loafers are marching single-file into the Argyle Technological Museum. Klaus decides he’d still rather be anywhere else, but Five is at his back pushing him along – “Move it, stupid, I want to see the rocket demonstration” – and Luther’s eyes are as big as saucers, so that’s something, he thinks.

They spend a little over an hour in the museum, grateful to finally be old enough that Mom doesn’t have to tag along. Five watches the rocket demonstration eight times, Allison finds a television hall that she drags Ben and Klaus into, and Vanya ends up spending most of the time in a movie that talks about the development of the automobile; she’s always wanted to learn to drive. Luther spends the whole time at the airplane exhibit, telling an unwilling Diego about all the different models. At one point, he even corrects the lecturer, which makes him very pleased.

Klaus isn’t very impressed with the television hall, but there’s one television that’s playing a station with live music that he gravitates towards. Ben ends up looking at one that’s playing the nature channel, and Allison looks at the enormous floor-to-ceiling pictures of movie stars. They’re much bigger than the posters she has in her room.

At one point Five points them toward an exhibition that has a picture of them, which is strange. They look at it for a few minutes, reading about the ways that their presence in the city has impacted the technology of the police force, but eventually they get too creeped out and have to leave. The long hallways of the museum take them all in different directions, scattering to all the little corners that hold never-before-seen treasures of information about the “real world.”

At five minutes to eleven, Five begins the Herculean task of rounding them all back up in the lobby. With just one minute to spare, they stare with enormous eyes as the little hands of Ben’s watch tick toward the hour. As the moment approaches, they begin the chant, with Klaus playfully pointing at each sibling when their number passes.

“Seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… go!”

Six pairs of eyes turn eagerly to Diego, who’s wearing a frighteningly mischievous smile. “Have you guys ever heard of go-karts?”

–

Vanya’s got her hands clapped over her eyes, screaming for her life. “Slow _down_ , I’m gonna – HELP!” Klaus cackles, screeching around a corner, and Vanya lets out another yelp as she is shoved violently into the side of the car. “ _Klaus_!”

“We can’t let them catch up!” her brother shouts over the whir of the engine, yanking the steering wheel just enough to cut off Diego and Ben, who are hot on their heels – er, tires. He laughs again when Diego lets out a frustrated yell.

“It’s _my_ birthday, asshole!”

“It’s _our_ birthday!” Klaus shoots back, sticking his tongue out.

Vanya sucks her bottom lip between her teeth, gripping the edge of the door with white knuckles. “When it’s my turn, we’re doing something more quieeeEET!” The kart spins nearly out of control, but Klaus has an iron grip on the wheel, and they skid to a halt inches from the wall that surrounds the track.

“Fuck,” Klaus mutters, and Vanya knows he’s not supposed to use that word, but the wild yell that Allison lets out as she and Five scream past them distracts her. Ben’s cursing too, on the other side of the track, and Diego’s whooping and laughing, and Luther (who’s too big to have a kart partner) keeps crashing into the rubber tires in the middle when he tries to turn. Klaus revs the engine again, and Vanya finds the small part of her that’s enjoying this and yanks it up from within, letting herself release a crazed shriek as they speed away.

At ten minutes to one, they all climb out, tip the go-kart operator with some wadded-up cash that Five has left over from last Christmas, each grab a piping-hot corn dog from a stand, and turn their red-cheeked, windblown faces to Allison.

“What’s next?”

–

Really, they should have known that Allison’s grin held too much mischief to be anything good. Diego nearly has to be dragged into her bedroom, kicking and screaming, but he knows the rules as well as any of them: whatever you choose, goes. For two hours, no matter what. And so, when Allison gathers them all on the floor of her room, in a neat little circle on the rug, she’s got them right where she wants them.

She looks each of her siblings dead in the eyes, lips quirking up into a smile as she gives Klaus a wink and asks slyly, “Who’s going first?”

Klaus’ hand shoots up in the air, and she sets to work. It’s hard with adopted siblings, since most of her palettes won’t suit them, but she figures she can scrounge up enough to cobble together a nice look for each of them. Luther puts on a record of a diva that Allison likes, and there in the pink glow of her room, she makes each of them beautiful.

Klaus gets his usual look and loves it instantly, of course, and Ben goes second, announcing that “he can do anything Klaus can do.” He actually comes out rather nicely, Allison thinks, with his little round cheeks stained with rouge. The rest of them aren’t so eager, so Vanya goes next, and Allison sweeps her bangs up and out of her eyes as part of the look; Vanya’s so shocked at the transformation, that she decides then and there that she’ll grow them out.

There’s a lot of shoving, but Luther ends up going next, and Allison revels in this because a) it’s _Luther_ , and b) he’s got the lightest hair of any of them and she can use her chalk hair dye.

Diego nearly falls over giggling when she reveals the final product. “He looks like a troll doll!” he chokes out, but Allison fixes him with a glare.

“It’s _my_ birthday, and I think he looks nice.” Luther turns bright red behind the makeup.

“It’s _our_ birthday,” Five points out.

Allison glares. “Just for that, you’re going next.”

Five actually turns out okay, because Allison manages to highlight his dimples so that he looks like a model. He decides not to complain; after all, it’s her birthday.

Diego goes last, and Allison nearly can’t finish in time.

“Stop _squirming_.”

“It _tickles_ ,” he whines, scrunching up his nose as the brush passes over it again. Eventually, Allison has to get Luther and Ben to hold him down, but Luther’s so grumpy about Diego’s earlier comments that he keeps pinching his sides, making him yelp and whine even more.

“Diego, I swear, you’ve got to stop moving or this lipstick will get _everywhere_.”

“Luther’s – _HEY_! Luther’s _torturing_ me, I’m gonna _die_!”

“Are not,” Luther mumbles, but he lets up enough for Allison to finish just as the clock downstairs alerts them that her two hours are up.

“Quick, go go go!” Five hisses, scrubbing at his face with a towel.

–

Klaus takes them all to a movie at the cinema, which they’ve never done before. They’ve seen some educational films as part of their schooling, and every now and then they’ll gather up enough quarters to rent a movie from the rental house down the street. They usually get horror movies that they can critique – “Eldritch tentacle creatures look _nothing_ like that!” – but the look on Klaus’ face suggests that they’re not in the market for a horror movie.

Klaus makes sure that he buys the tickets, so the movie can be a “surprise.” That fills them all with a bit of trepidation, but their brother swiftly ushers them over to the concessions, and the almost overwhelmingly buttery smell of popcorn pulls any hesitation straight out of them. Armed with monstrously large buckets of salty goodness (and about a year’s supply of soda and Sour Patch Kids), they settle into plush oversized movie seats to see what Klaus has in store for them. Vanya looks the most nervous, but she always looks nervous, so the others don’t pay her any mind.

Ben isn’t so sure about the shit-eating grin on Klaus’ face as the previews roll, but whatever he’s anticipating, it’s nothing compared to when the film actually starts. The very second the others realize that Klaus has picked a rom-com – and not only that, a _sappy_ rom-com – they all simultaneously groan and sink down in their seats.

“It’s the only one that was under the time limit,” Klaus protests by way of explanation, but the way that his bottom lip is caught gleefully between his teeth suggests otherwise. Luther decides then and there that as soon as this birthday is over, he’s making Klaus _pay_.

The movie isn’t hard to follow; it’s something about a girl with chronic amnesia and her fiancé who goes to war, or something. Maybe it’s the other way around. Five falls asleep halfway through, and the others have to nearly shake his brain out of his skull to stop his snoring. But when they all stumble out of the theater, blinking blearily into the mid-afternoon sun, Klaus looks pleased as punch. Nobody mentions that Diego’s eyes are suspiciously red and watery. After all, the twist about the love interest’s sister _was_ pretty devastating.

Ben checks his watch. “Three minutes.”

Five rubs at his eyes, grumpy at being woken up. “We don’t need to wait. My birthday request is going to be all of you leaving me alone for two hours.”

Allison groans, shoving him. “Come on, for real.”

“I’m serious. I’m going to go home and take a nap and none of you assholes are gonna bother me for—”

“ _Five_.”

He huffs. “Fine. Come on.”

–

“Really?” Vanya asks, her eyes wide as she steps over the sticky threshold.

“Shut up.” Five’s ears are red, but Klaus is bouncing on his toes.

“ _Awesome_ , Fiver,” he cries, making a mad dash for the first machine he sees.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in an arcade,” Allison says, pulling some money out of her pocket, “only seen it in movies. How’d you find this place?”

“I come here sometimes,” Five mumbles, and his shoulders are up by his ears, maybe to hide the flush.

Ben puts a hand on his shoulder, in the soft way that he always does. “What’s your favorite game?”

The redness around the tips of Five’s ears doesn’t quite go away, but his dimples appear for a heartbeat, and then he’s got Ben’s hand in his and is dragging him off toward a Skee-ball machine.

Luther finds a strength tester and spends forever trying to find the happy medium that would get him the tickets without breaking the machine, with Vanya cheering him on. Allison and Klaus play a memory game and nearly win twice, and Diego spends almost twenty dollars spinning a wheel to get about ten tickets, with which he buys a lollipop.

When they’ve almost exhausted their quarter supply, Ben tugs on enough sleeves to convince them to pile into the tiny photobooth in the corner of the arcade. The most reluctant, unsurprisingly, is Five.

“We have to commemorate your birthday!” Allison says, only half teasing.

“ _Our_ birthday,” Luther reminds her, and that gets Five mad enough to stomp his way through the curtain.

They almost don’t fit, between Luther’s big shoulders and Klaus’ bony limbs, but eventually they’re all squeezed in. Diego puts in a quarter.

“Say cheese!”

“ _No way_ ,” Five begins to grumble, but then Allison’s skinny fingers are poking into his ribs, finding the space right between the two lowest ones that makes him giggle. When they print the picture, they all tease him about his big smile, ruffling his hair and poking at his cheeks until he’s swatting at their hands and threatening to put bugs in their beds.

“Shit!” Klaus cries suddenly. “Is it Ben’s turn yet?”

Ben’s eyes widen, and he checks his watch. “Two minutes over. Five stole my minutes!”

“You stole your own minutes with that picture,” Five snaps back, but Ben’s already headed out the door.

“Quick, come on, we don’t have much time before sunset!”

–

They get to the park just as the sun is slipping over the horizon, each munching on a street taco wrapped in thin foil in one hand, with a towering ice cream cone in the other – except Vanya, who had eaten her mint chocolate chip too fast and gotten a brain freeze and dropped it. Klaus skips ahead, only vaguely listening to Ben’s directions on where to go, and as such, when they reach the duck pond, he nearly falls in.

Ben’s pulling a bag of sliced grapes out of nowhere – “Bread makes them bloated,” he says, and the others nod because Ben knows what he’s doing – and before long they’re sitting around the pond, alternating between tossing the grapes to the ducks and eating them in little handfuls.

Luther befriends one of the ducks, and it’s cute for a while, until it gets greedy and starts chasing him around the lawn, quacking menacingly. (Luther’s screams of terror are hilarious to everyone, but Diego especially winds up coughing his lungs out on the ground, weak with laughter.)

Klaus does cartwheels down a hill, Allison and Vanya play chess on one of the park chess sets, and Ben shows Five how to hold your hand so the ducks can eat right out of it without nipping your fingers. Five isn’t especially keen on their beady little eyes, but he knows that he really did steal two of Ben’s birthday minutes, so he feeds the ducks as long as he can, even when their nibbling beaks tickle his palms dreadfully. Ben is fairly glowing with happiness, the last rays of light dancing in his eyes as they all help with spreading out a blanket on the wet grass. They sit in a big circle, identically cross-legged and straight-backed from years of practice.

“I’ll go first,” Allison says. “Once.”

“Upon.”

“A.”

“Time.”

“There.”

“Was.”

“A.”

“Dragon!”

“Who.”

“Lived.”

“In.”

“A.”

“Pineapple under the sea!”

“Klaus, that’s cheating.”

“But it’s Spongebob! Fine, fine, lived in a… dungeon.”

Over the course of the story, the dragon who lived in a dungeon saves a princess, eats a pizza, invents quantum mechanics, and has… adult interactions with a mango salesman. Eventually, the seven of them are laughing too hard to continue, and Five especially has tears of mirth streaking down his face.

“Okay, okay,” Ben gasps, clutching his stomach. “It’s almost Vanya’s turn.”

“Vanny?” Six heads swivel in her direction. Vanya flushes, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Okay, if you’re sure.”

–

“How is this different from a normal day?” Diego grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest. “We hear her play anyway—”

“Yeah, but you don’t _listen_ ,” Five hisses between gritted teeth. “And don’t be an asshole, it’s Vanya’s birthday.”

“ _Our_ birthday,” Diego mutters, but he falls silent when Vanya picks up her bow. She carefully plucks at the strings, tuning, as Klaus shoves a sharp elbow into Luther’s stomach.

“Move over.”

“Quit shoving.”

“I don’t think a twin bed was made for six,” Ben observes, kicking his legs over the side. “Not six superheroes, anyway.”

“I don’t think anything was made for six superheroes,” Five retorts, but Vanya’s clearing her throat.

“This one, um,” she starts, and her voice is a squeak. “This one’s Bach.”

When she starts, she starts softly, so as not to wake the other members of the house – it was past 9 p.m., after all – but gradually, Vanya picks up pace and volume, the music swelling out of her violin and washing over her captive audience. Her siblings are transfixed, eyes like saucers as her bow dips and twists over the instrument.

The Bach concerto ends, and almost immediately she’s on to a Brahms, then a Vivaldi, and when she glances up in the middle of her second Mendelssohn, she notices that her audience is gone. Well, not gone, exactly – fast asleep, cheeks flushed and mouths open, breathing deeply, fingers twisted into one another’s hair and clothing, clinging. She stops short, almost astonished, but realizes with a weight that she is also mind-numbingly tired. Maybe the split-time birthday system was fun, but it was also _exhausting._

Vanya sets her violin back in its case, flicks off her lamp, kicks off her shoes, and clambers onto the bed, nestling herself into a spot between Five and Diego. She breaths out a sigh, and it feels like something within her releases a notch. Not much, but enough. She smiles, brushing Allison’s hair away from her sleeping face.

“Happy birthday, guys,” she whispers, and curls up among her siblings, content.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: colllapse


End file.
